Soap Alchemist (& Owner of The Dark Island Soap Co.), Herbologist and Certified Usui Reiki Healer
Meet the creator and owner of The Dark Island Soap Co. Chiara, an Edinburgh native who now resides in the beautiful Stirlingshire countryside with her young family, has been a full-time self-taught soap maker since the end of 2022, where she also studied for and completed a business diploma in soap making, learning about the importance of creating cold process soap safely. Along with being a traditional soap maker, Chiara is also a herbologist and creates wonderful herbal and botanically infused soaps, understanding and appreciating the wonderful power of nature, she captures their beauty and benefits in her award-winning handcrafted soaps. Chiara also loves foraging locally to her home and uses her kitchen space for all her dehydrating, infusing and soap making purposes! In the autumn of 2022, after the loss of her father, Chiara studied Reiki therapy and is now a much respected certified Usui Reiki practitioner, with a Shamanic Energy Healing and Crystal Healing diploma under her belt. This Spring will see her complete her Reiki Master training.
Here at The Dark Island Soap Co. we make our cold process soaps from a base recipe of certified organic natural oils and raw, unrefined organic shea butter. Cold process soap making is the original, traditional method of making soap by combining fat or oil (animal or plant based) with sodium hydroxide (lye), then blending in an addition of essential oils, fragrance oils, and/or colourants as required. This treatment causes a chemical reaction called saponification which takes up to 48 hours, and the final stage of "curing" (which hardens the bar) takes between 4-6 weeks.
